Raw Journolist emails: Do Tea Party members ‘parallel’ Nazis?

Steven Teles
Aug 7, 2009, 1:43pm

I agree, this was not a model of analytical rigor. I’m not sure what I was supposed to think was so impressive about this. Rick, can you elaborate on this piece’s virtues, that Mike and I missed?

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Steven Teles
Aug 7, 2009, 1:51pm

So you’re saying that contemporary right-wingers are worse than fascists, because they won’t even give regular people efficient and timely transportation infrastructure? That really is going out on a limb. It would make a great Nation column: “The Nazis–At Least They Gave Us the Autobahn!”

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Katha Pollitt
Aug 7, 2009, 2:14pm

Oh come on, that isn’t what i said. Obviously big-govt fascists are more dangerous than small-govt reactionaries. My point was that fascists had the wherewithal to be truly popular — they offered (racially vetted) people material benefits, that was one of the things Germans and italians liked about them. I don’t see american reactionaries making the same offer. that is (one reason) why I don’t see them as today’s equivalent to the Nazis and Italian fascists. Who were, I guess i need to say this, incomparably evil. The Devil BUYS your soul.

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Jeet Heer
Aug 7, 2009, 3:34pm

I’d also say that the fascist and National Socialist right had an intellectual heft that the contemporary American right lacks. I’d much rather read Heidegger, Junger, Schmitt, Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound etc. than Limbaugh, Coulter, Beck, Mark Steyn, etc.

This is not to say, of course, that fascism is better than the contemporary right. Quite the reverse: part of what made fascism so absolutely evil was how ambitious and far-reaching it was, which partially explains its intellectual appeal.

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Nate Silver
Aug 7, 2009, 4:34pm

There’s a pretty fine line here. I agree with your term “effective” — it’s been interesting to watch the number of incoming links to these stories at places like Memorandum. It started out as something that the conservative blogs seemed to pretty thrilled about, and now it’s liberal blogs driving the attention by about a 3:1 margin. For me, it’s not been the most intellectually honest moment in the history of the liberal blogosphere but, oh well, it’s an Important Time, and I certainly think people’s hearts are in the right place and I’ve enjoyed standing mostly on the sidelines and watching it unfold.

But I think we’re almost at the point where we’re actually the ones driving this story and giving these people a mouthpiece. Too much has been made of the fact that this is a LOUD, OBNOXIOUS group of people and too little of the fact that it’s a SMALL group of people, albeit larger than what we seem to be able to muster up at these events.

Just to repeat myself: I think the left-o-sphere has been fairly effective at fighting this one to a draw. When Blanche F’in Lincoln calls the protesters “un-American” — even if she has to retract it later — that’s a sign they might not be having the effect they were hoping to have. Nobody likes to feel insulted or intimidated, especially not U.S. Congressmen, and they certainly don’t want to feel that nobody is listening to them. But there should probably be some reflection now on whether it’s time to pull back a little. The economic numbers today were really good, the polls seem to be
stabilizing a bit; I’m feeling pretty good about health care, like 80/20 good.

Nate

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Michael Cohen
Aug 7, 2009, 4:57pm

When Nate Silver feels good . . I feel good.

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Michael Kazin
Aug 7, 2009, 5:05pm

yo tambien- now enjoy your weekends

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David Meyer
Aug 7, 2009, 5:59pm

The issue here is, and always has been, from an organizing perspective, whether the Blue Dogs are going to come back from August and say “my constituents are angry, I can’t support this bill.” I’d give 2:1 on that taking place with at least a dozen blue dogs. By that measure, the pushback has been insufficient.

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Lindsay Beyerstein
Aug 9, 2009, 8:45pm

I’m not saying these guys are capital F-fascists, but they don’t want limited government. Their desired end looks more like a corporate state than a rugged individualist paradise.

The rank and file wants a state that will reach into the intimate of citizens when it comes to sex, reproductive freedom, censorship, and rampant incarceration in the name of law and order. They want their “limited” government to identify itself as a Christian nation and they want Christian churches to wield major influence on public life.

They hate unions, they hate intellectuals, and they hate gays. They idealize guns and the traditional family.

The financiers (e.g., the pharmaceutical and insurance industries) very much want a corporate state. What is healthcare reform without a public option, if not the largest expansion of the corporate state in our lifetime? Without a public option, we’re going to see “reform” that involves the government subsidizing the insurance companies’
crappy product and forcing everyone to buy it.

The whole movement expects America to be “strong” on defense, meaning heavily militarized. A strategy which guarantees big government, big spending, and big influence of defense companies over national policy. All classic Fascist desiderate.

As a rhetorical matter, it’s confusing to liken any contemporary group to Fascists because the comparison has been used so freely that calling someone a fascist is just another way of calling them evil or authoritarian.